Fri, 31, January, 2025, 8:57 am

Lasting police, judicial reforms essential to prevent abuse by future govt: HRW

Lasting police, judicial reforms essential to prevent abuse by future govt: HRW

Shawdesh desk:

The New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) has warned the student-led uprising’s hard-won progress towards reforming Bangladeshi state institutions could be lost, if the Prof Yunus-led government does not implement swift and structural changes to prevent any repression by future administrations.

After over 15 years of arbitrary use of security forces by the Awami League regime to suppress dissent, an emerging pattern of unnecessary arrests and reprisal violence underscores the need for long-term systemic reforms, HRW said in its report published online on Wednesday morning Dhaka time.

Many political activists have already started exploiting legal provisions, which allow vague and overly broad charges, to target individuals likely unrelated to the crime in question, HRW has learnt during interviews with plaintiffs.

Muhammad Yunus, whom student activists appointed as head of the interim government days after Hasina’s departure, has made important commitments to implementing reforms before holding free and fair elections. But he must go further to ensure lasting change.

The HRW report urges the interim government to establish legal detention practices and repeal laws used to target critics. Reforms should be centered on separation of powers and ensuring political neutrality across institutions, including the civil service, police, military, and the judiciary.

The interim government should introduce a UN Human Rights Council resolution at the council’s March 2025 session to ensure lasting reforms beyond the interim government’s limited tenure, Human Rights Watch said. The government should seek technical assistance, monitoring, and reporting by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and other UN rights experts to ensure lasting reforms.

Donor governments should invest in police training and other security sector reform in Bangladesh, but not without these core structural reforms.

Those with command responsibility for abuses under the previous government should be held to account. However, mass complaints without adequate evidence only undermine justice, Human Rights Watch said. Family members of two people who died in the uprising against Sheikh Hasina told Human Rights Watch that local political leaders opposed to the Awami League pressured them to sign the police reports, though they were not sure against whom, if they wanted the state to recognise their relative’s murder, including with financial compensation and other reparations.

As Hasina consolidated power during her 15-year undemocratic rule, her government also weakened the institutions that would keep its powers in check and maintain oversight and accountability over security forces, including the judiciary and the national human rights commission. One policeman told Human Rights Watch that loyalty to the Awami League was “often prioritized over merit for lucrative postings,” leading police to “become increasingly biased, acting more like party cadres over the years.”

Officers involved in enforced disappearances also told Human Rights Watch that Sheikh Hasina and senior members of her government had knowledge of incommunicado detentions.

Shortly after Hasina fled the country, three men were released from secret detention centers. In all three cases, authorities had for years denied having them in custody. Mir Ahmad Bin Quasem, a lawyer, described the facility where he was held as having been “meticulously designed to give the detainees a worse than death experience.” The report issued by the national disappearances inquiry found that torture “was not only systematic but also institutionalized.”

According to HRW, the government should act on the recommendation of the national commission of inquiry to disband the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), a counterterrorism unit of seconded police and military personnel that has been responsible for numerous extrajudicial killings, torture, and enforced disappearances. In response to the report’s findings, the RAB chief AKM Shahidur Rahman acknowledged the unit’s secret detention centers and stated that RAB would accept the decision if the interim government sought to disband the unit.

In an important step, the interim government has acceded to the UN Convention on Enforced Disappearances. It should ratify the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment and urgently invite the sub-committee on Prevention to visit Bangladesh and make recommendations.

Bangladesh has a long history of divisive politics, which can seep into law enforcement. The interim government should establish independent civilian oversight over law enforcement, including through the national human rights commission, with authority to carry out unannounced inspections of all places of detention. It should also enforce international standards on use of force, making clear that any member of the security forces breaching them will be held accountable.

Member countries should work with the interim government to put in place Human Rights Council mandated monitoring of Bangladesh’s human rights situation by the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, and establish regular reporting back to the council.

“Bangladesh’s interim government has the monumental task of undoing 15 years of increasingly entrenched autocracy,” Pearson said. “The interim government should enlist UN support to cement structural reforms so that the abuses of the past do not become a blueprint for Bangladesh’s future.”

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